


Façade

by misbehavingvigilante



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, let the old men flirt with each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-14 01:09:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13582806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misbehavingvigilante/pseuds/misbehavingvigilante
Summary: And maybe he wasn’t the best man, but Jack had never been heartless.





	Façade

**Author's Note:**

> It's been like close to a year since my last overwatch fic and few months since my last fic so this is bound to be rusty. 
> 
> Additional disclaimers I wrote this quickly and sleep deprived so I'm sure despite looking over for errors there'll still be some left. I kinda like and don't like this piece but it's a return to writing so. It's also like tonally all over the place and probably weird with tenses but it is what it is. 
> 
> Let me know if I need to add any additional tags in case I missed something. Hope someone enjoys this at least?

There are probably a few people who assume that Jack Morrison couldn’t possibly be the vigilante Solider: 76 because they’re too different. It’s impossible for one like that great noble man, a hero of the omnic crisis could ever turn into someone so dangerous and violent.

Those people are wrong but there’s a sense that appeals to Jack’s somewhat still not burnt out husk of pride within him. Once pride had been a burdening blossom within him always threatening to get the best of him if it wasn’t clipped in time. The remnants of pride lurking within flourishing at the fact that years after his presumed death the man people thought he was and the man he’d been all along are still vastly different.

That hadn’t been an accident by any stretch, it was something he began with a child without really any malicious intent behind it, just a hidden talent he stumbled across and honed over the years. By the time Jack realized that knowing what people wanted to hear and knowing how best to make them like you was manipulative, he didn’t stop.

Perhaps a more moral man would have. But it wasn’t like he particularly used the talent for anything too untoward as a teen. He made teachers like him so they would be more lenient with schoolwork by gifting him extensions so he had more time to fuck off and do what he wanted rather than busy himself with his education. He made friends easily by figuring out best what they wanted to hear and surrounded himself with large groups of people so he never wanted for company.

Overall, rather harmless things but then came the omnic crisis. And maybe he wasn’t the best man, but Jack had never been heartless. The scope of suffering appealed to him to do something to stop it, thus he enlisted. He had never been a particularly driven individual hadn’t seen much in the way of his life but ending up at his family farm and he had been rather content with that idea.

It helped being charismatic in basic training as he made friends easily with cadets and the brass. And before he really knew it, he was in the long term more at the behest at others rather than a genuine interest himself.

But his sense of pride preened under the compliments and the weight of admiring stares and Jack found himself unable to say no.

It wasn’t really until he met Gabriel Reyes that anyone so thoroughly called him out on his shit. It left Jack stunned and vulnerable in a way he hadn’t been before. It was only months later really because never let it be said that despite his many talents he couldn’t be dense that he didn’t exactly despise it.

It was with the same lack of foresight that he hadn’t seen the relationship between him and Gabriel coming. They’d been fast friends of course but there had been signs there in front of him lingering stares, and a penchant for preferring his company above anyone else’s, other people remarking on their closeness.

Part of the lack of foresight had likely come from the fact all the relationships he had up to this point despite having some genuine interest and passion behind it hadn’t been love.

And their love had been like the sun, bright, all compassing and impossible to ignore. Which should have been a warning sign in and of itself because despite the sun being the cause of all life, it could just as easily be the end.

It was hard to pinpoint where exactly things went south, where exactly they fell out of balance with each other. The distance hadn’t helped with Jack being in charge of Overwatch and Gabe in charge of Blackwatch there should have been enough time for each other.

It was almost as if forces outside of their control came between them in whittling away the time they saw one another until mostly all they had together was work. There wasn’t anything else they could really make time for with the demands of their positions and thus their relationship began to wane. Things after that get blurry with the flurry of how fast everything had happened, with how fast everything had gone downhill until the only thing people talked about when they spoke of Overwatch was its downfall and the death of once beloved commanders in the scorching earth that was the Swiss base.

Of course neither of them died because at their cores they were both stubborn men.

But the end of Overwatch had come with a lot of confusion about what exactly had brought upon its downfall and with his death accepted as a public fact, Jack felt free for once in his life.

He didn’t really have to pretend anymore that he was the perfect golden boy people oh so loved to imagine him as instead he could be more true to who he always had been. But where there had been pride at his fatal flaw, something else rose from the ashes of the Swiss base aside him.

Wrath.

A persistent and demanding emotion that washed over him again and again making forming any kind of easy smile or gentle eyes to soothe over the worries of the higher ups as he had a thousand times to cover for Gabe or to simply provide comfort to a stranger to make them more willing to share information he needed was out of reach.

Having the scars on his face also killed the potential of his once tried and true tactics because of a fair share of them worked because people had found him attractive. The white, receding hair from a lifetime of stress enough to kill several other lesser men had aged him prematurely hadn’t helped. In the last days of Overwatch, he had struggled more to win people over as easily as he had even five years prior relying more and more on the reputation they had built up of him inside their head instead to get what he needed.

All the factors as they were meant he needed a new trick. If manipulation was out of reach, by necessity or not, there was always giving into his newfound wrath.

He didn’t have to deal with red tape anymore with dealing with criminals who would only get out to do the same things again, nor did he have to hold back as they had been carefully trained to do as an aftereffect of the SEP program.

If answers had been out of his reach before by guile, then Jack would have to take them by force.

 

 

 

“Your thing used to be pride.” Gabriel’s voice sounds a bit different now and it’s heavy with the emotion it comes with knowing someone for a lifetime, and he’s never lost his love of theatrics by sneaking up behind as a miasma of mist only to turn solid the next moment. It’s like something straight out of a shitty horror flick that they used to watch together. “Unless you managed to hide wrath from me but I find that hard to believe.”

“Haven’t you heard? Have a paramilitary building drop on you and your new thing becomes wrath.”

“Your sense of humor definitely didn’t get better from the blast.” Gabriel says instead of attacking him out right instead here they are, just staring each other down behind masks they made them look like they’re from a Halloween special of rejected superheroes.  

“Some things don’t change.” Things are strained between them as first meetings goes instead of coming to blows they’re just talking it out like perhaps maybe they’re both eager to make up for years of deprived contact from each other. “You wanna kill me? You can go ahead.”

It’s not like Jack really cares, wrath burns within him like it’s the only guiding light he has left in his life. He’s standing in front of his ex-husband because death annuls marriage even if they had never gotten around to that despite how bad things had get and the idea that Gabe could be the only to end things for him?

That’s a more comforting thought than it probably should be, at least it would mean the last thing Jack would see is him.

“You could at least beg for your life.” That’s the response Jack expected, the softer more to himself comment that Gabriel shares is less though. “Or show some semblance of a self-preservation streak.”

That gets the gears moving through his head churning away at that piece of information wondering how best to draw more out before Jack remembers that he can’t use that playbook anymore and furthermore this is Gabriel. Who never fell for such things and only told him things he sincerely felt comfortable with sharing. So a confession like that is either a trap to prey on sentimentality he might still have to kill him which again isn’t exactly an unwanted outcome or it’s genuine.

The thought of Gabriel genuinely wishing he remained alive is probably harder to deal with because it comes with questions he doesn’t have the answer for. It’s much too hopeful to assume Gabe still loves him or even wants him after everything even if neither of them was more responsible for the downfall of Overwatch than the other. That’s the one thing Jack is sure because if anything, he knows they share the blame like they shared everything else once.

“Don’t go getting lost in your thoughts, old man.” Gabriel reminded unhappy with the silence he’s greeted with as he’s making an effort here and Jack’s head is off in the clouds again.

Because Gabriel doubts that Jack could have lost all of his pride in that fire so he’s hoping for a quick response back even if it’s just an attack.

Anything better than silence.

“You’re older than me.”

“Debatable.” Gabriel shrugged with ease like he’s not in front of a man who both gave him everything and made him lose it all the same. “There are some things I never told you.”

“I don’t know how you ever kept it a secret to begin with.” Jack said nonchalantly, feeling more at ease with their tentative conversation now. “You could have been scaring the shit out of me for years by popping out of nowhere.”

There’s a brief pause that could have simply been mistaken for an awkward pause given their complicated relationship instead of the discomfort of the memories of how he began this to begin with. “That would have been fun.”

Certainly would have been a better way to figure out his not entirely wanted smoke powers by pranking his husband rather than being in genuine fear of losing his body autonomy at any moment and through a torturous trial and error experience that had taken years to make it look like he could do it on demand.

“You always were like a stock white guy in the movie. You’d always go down to the basement to figure out what that noise was instead of any sensible fucker that would just leave the damn house.”

“Isn’t that what I had you for? To drag my dumbass out of harm’s way?”

“Your flat ass.” Gabriel corrected because damn if he would walk this earth without taking every opportunity he could to point that out.

Jack scoffed. “You always were such a romantic. Even though I was the one who always remembered our anniversary.”

“That was one time and technically that was the fault of a government that I’m not at liberty to reveal.”

“Really?” Jack sounded skeptical. “The dead are bound by contracts now?”

“Did your pretty blue eyes read some of those contracts they made us sign? Or were you too busy batting your eyelashes enthralling others to notice?”

The compliment doesn’t flyby unnoticed though it does feel undeserved in his current state. Even speaking the words sounds like Jack is trying to host a pity party for one but they come out with new lack of filter. “Not as pretty as I used to be.”

“Yeah, well, your pretty boy façade was always one of least charming things about you anyways.” There had been many reasons Gabriel fell in love with Jack but that had never been one of them. “Besides, the new you isn’t so bad. You don’t look bad covered in the blood of your enemies.”

“Sounds like there’s a but at the end of that sentence.”

“I think you’d look better in nothing at all or maybe something of mine.”

“I thought your new outfit looked familiar.” Jack chuckled, Reaper’s outfit bore some similarities to his old strike commander uniform but black and with a few alterations in some places.

“I made it better. So what it’ll be? We can always fight each other some if that’s what it takes to get your blood pumping nowadays.”

“Could always take a swing at you to wipe that smirk off your face that I just know is there under that mask.” It’s without heat, and much more playful. It’s a good thing no one has taken advantage of the fact they’re both out here in the open just flirting with each other back and forth.

“You could always find out for yourself what’s under the mask if you ask nicely. Though I prefer a change in scenery first.”

“Your place or mine?”


End file.
